As if the world was lacking problems, with hurricanes and Trump and wars in the Middle East, we had two “new” topics to think about. The referendums about independence in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) on September 25, 2017, and in Catalonia on October 1, reminded the world about the aspirations of these two peoples.

The initiatives to hold such referendums represent an optimistic approach, a belief that the expression of the will of the people carries a moral weight that may influence political events. But in both cases we also witnessed the refusal of the local and world ruling powers to accept the legitimacy of the referendum. The perspective of conflicts that might get out of control is looming. What is it all about and what does it teach us about the state of the world these days?

I was lucky to meet a distinguished guest in Haifa a few days after the referendum, an intellectual activist from Catalonia. He agreed to help me understand better what is behind the Catalan referendum and how people in Catalonia think about their future as an independent nation. I will try to summarize below what I heard from him as well as the result of some reading and research on my side and deliberations about current discussion of the issue in leftist circles.

The deep roots of Catalan aspirations

Catalonia‘s history as a nation with distinguished language, culture and history goes back many hundreds of years. But the roots of today’s struggle for Catalonian independence can be immediately traced to the harsh history of Spain in the 20th century. Being industrialized earlier than most of Spain, Catalonia became a hotbed of republican and democratic aspirations, as well as of social movements, with a big role to the trade unions and to anarchist and socialist parties and organizations.

Barricades in Barcelona, 1909. Refusing to oppress rebellious Morocco

During the 1909 “Second Rif War”, waged by Spanish colonialism to oppress liberation struggles in Morocco, anarchists and socialists in Catalonia called for a general strike against forced conscription to the Spanish army. The people of Barcelona took control of the streets, and soldiers from the local units of the army refused to move against their brother workers. Soon army units were sent from other parts of Spain. They crushed the popular uprising by deadly fire, killing about 150 people. Later the Spanish courts ordered the execution of some of the political leaders of the movement, including anarchist thinker Francesc Ferrer.

The repressive dictatorship of Primo De-Rivera, a general who suspended the constitution and ruled Spain with the support of the king between 1923 and 1930, spent special efforts to suppress “separatists” in Catalonia and the Basque country. Economic crisis and mass protest forced the dismantling of the dictatorship and opened the door for the establishment of the “Second Spanish Republic” that lasted from 1931 until it was slaughtered in the bloody 1936-39 civil war by General Franco’s fascist forces.

Francesc Meciá addressing a rally

Just before the republic was declared, on April 1931, after parties supporting Catalan independence won local elections, Catalan republicans led by Francesc Macià declared the establishment of an independent Catalan Republic, hoping to be part of an “Iberian Confederation”. They were soon pressed by the new republican leadership in Madrid and agreed to settle for an autonomous Catalonia within Spain.

After the election victory of the right-wing and fascists and the formation of a republican government led by CEDA, the Catalan local government declared, on October 6, 1934, a “Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic”. It was meant to be part of a leftist resistance movement against the rising danger of fascism, which was threatening the whole European continent. Soon the Spanish army crashed the independent state, suspended local autonomy and arrested many activists including president Lluís Companys and all his government.

All this was just prelude to Catalonia’s special experiment during the 1936-39 civil war between the Spanish Republic and General Franco’s fascists. There are many books and films about this extraordinary social experiment aimed not only to defend the democratic republic but also to create a better society, led by workers and peasants in a real democratic and egalitarian spirit. In fact, my early love for Catalonia started with reading Orwell’s book “Homage to Catalonia”.

Later, of course, followed the bleeding experience of almost forty years of oppression by the Franco dictatorship. Mr. Companys, who was Catalonia’s president during the civil war, was among many who were executed in revenge for their struggle for freedom and justice. The Catalan language was outlawed and tens of thousands were imprisoned or had to go into exile.

There is a direct line connecting the experiences of the 20th century and current events in Catalonia. Most people that are active today have living memories of parents, grandparents, relatives and friends who were killed, tortured, imprisoned or had to go into exile during the civil war or Franco’s dictatorship. The party of Macià and Companys, the “Republican Left of Catalonia” (ERC), is still leading the movement for independence and in the 2015 elections, as part of the “Together for Yes” coalition (JxSí), returned to be the biggest party in the Catalan parliament with 62 out of 135 representatives. And Spain is still a monarchy with institutions that have never completely broken with the tradition of Franco’s dictatorship. The “People’s Party” (PP) of Prime Minister Rajoy was actually established by a previous interior minister under the Franco dictatorship to assure this continuity.

Sympathy and ambivalence about separatism

Some young comrades here see this reference to Catalonia’s idealistic and rebellious past as pure nostalgia. They say that now Catalonia is simply richer than most of Spain, and wouldn’t like to share its affluence. Comparing the current complaints of the Catalan with those of the Kurds (or the Palestinians), outside observers may say “they have nothing to complain about”.

It reminds me of the response of some poor people, which are used to the view of women being abused, beaten and prevented from going out of the house, to hearing of a middle-class woman that asks for a divorce just because there is no love in her marriage. “Let her be beaten and shut up”, they might say. But don’t we all believe that unity, in state or marriage, should be the result of free will?

“You say that Spain is not a democracy?”

Well, now, with the clumsy attempts by the Spanish state to oppress the referendum, and the views of police beating citizens furiously just for their will to cast their vote, Catalonia can show the blooded noise and bloated eye that turn public opinion in its favor. Wasn’t all the argument about staying in Spain based on the assumption that Spain is now a democracy? What is more democratic than letting people express their opinion? Britain allowed the Scots to vote on independence. British politicians campaigned to convince them to vote “No”, and won in a democratic way.

All the idea of “the right of nations for self-determination” is not about the argument whether staying in one state is better or worse than separation. It states the obvious fact that keeping a nation within a state contrary to its will is basically wrong, both morally and practically. Even if initially there were no compulsory reasons for separation, the oppression and enmity that are the inevitable results of trying to forcefully suppress separatism are making life miserable for the oppressed, and awkward in many ways for the oppressors, and undo any possible benefit of unity. This was recognized by the greatest leader of Arab nationalism, Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who let Sudan separate peacefully.

I learned from my Catalan guest that the same effect worked also within Catalonia itself. Initially many more people supported the referendum than supported total independence. They were saying: “We may agree to be part of Spain, but this should be decided by our free will”. And after the brutal assault on the referendum, Catalan people who supported unity with Spain joined the protesters for the first time, some of them waving Spanish flags.

I find it especially wired while some leftists consider the corrupt rightist ultra-centralist government in Madrid as God’s invisible hand that was sent to redistribute Catalonia’s excessive wealth to Spain’s poor regions. It is doing much better job at holding Barcelona back than at helping anybody else.

The long road to the current referendum

There is also a more recent historical experience that led to the current surge in support for Catalan independence. It goes back to the previous decade, when the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) was in government in Madrid, under Prime Minister José Zapatero. At the same time the socialists were also in government in autonomous Catalonia, and there was a long process of negotiations to redefine the place of Catalonia within Spain, to satisfy the demand for greater autonomy. After compromises on both sides, the agreement was approved in 2006 by both Parliaments, in Barcelona and Madrid, and in a special referendum in Catalonia.

The Spanish rightist party, PP, then in opposition, objected to the 2006 agreement and appealed against it to the constitutional court. In 2010 the court decided by 6 to 4 judges to rewrite and re-interpret the status of Catalonia, annulling most of the achievements of the Catalan people in terms of language, legal rights and economic autonomy. This intervention by the court, based on laws that are mostly relics of the fascist era, which overthrew all what was agreed upon in long negotiations and approved by a democratic process, convinced many Catalans that they can’t rely on Spain’s democracy to meet their aspirations.

The immediate response to the annulment of the autonomy status by the court was the first mass pro-independence rally, which was estimated to number more than a million people. The main slogan of the protest was “We are a nation. We decide.” Since then mass independence demos continued in Catalonia every year.

Opponents of Catalonia’s independence emphasis polls in which respondents were given three options: Full independence, wider autonomy or preserving the status quo. Those clearly stating their preference for independence usually fall short of outright majority. But the option for greater autonomy was unilaterally blocked by Madrid, so it is hardly a viable alternative. And, put together, there is a clear majority that is unsatisfied with the status quo.

Also, many of those that avoid calling for separation from Spain do it out of fear from outright repression and economic sanctions that may follow. The nightmares of the civil war and the dictatorship are still a strong force in Spain as a whole. Of course, these are legitimate considerations that should be taken into account while choosing your path. But it means that not all those that prefer to stay in Spain do it because this is what they really want.

Popular movement

What the Spanish government doesn’t understand, explains my guest, is the deep popular nature of the quest for independence. They negotiate with political leaders, hoping to convince them to abandon the call for independence. But now, as so many

One ballot box saved

people are active and emotionally involved and the ideas are so widely spread, this is not an option. If some leaders will give up, they will immediately lose their popular support.

He describes the political map in Catalonia. The support for independence is strong both among local establishment (pro-capitalist) parties and among the different leftists, socialist and anarchists. Parties that didn’t join the movement, like the local socialist party, were split and abandoned by many of their grassroots activists as well as intellectual highlights. Podemos, the new alternative left on the Spanish level, is supporting independence in Catalonia and gained farter credibility by defending Catalans’ right to choose their way in the Parliament in Madrid.

The day of Truth

The popular character of the movement was strengthened and highlighted toward the referendum, as the challenge of oppression by Madrid became more threatening. My guest tells the story of thousands of ballot boxes that were bought in China, flown to France and smuggled through the borders by thousands of ordinary Catalan citizens, many of them farmers, hiding them under beds and in cowsheds. In spite of the efforts of the Spanish regular police and aggressive “civil guards”, which were sent in in great numbers by Madrid, almost none were caught.

Hooded police confiscating ballot boxes – can they confiscate the will of the people?

He also tells the story of the defiance of more than five hundred local mayors, the great majority of them, who openly defied the orders of the central government and supported the referendum. Will they all be arrested?

His two sons, he tells, woke up at 04:00 on the morning of Sunday, October 1, their day off work, in order to be, with many others, at the gates of the polling center before 5 am, four hours before voting started, to prevent any attempt by the police to disrupt the voting. He also didn’t only vote “Yes!” but stayed the whole day to guard his vote lest it will be stolen by a police raid. They were all tuned to hear the news from friends’ phones of brutal police attacks on nearby polling centers. Fortunately the police had a hard time where they did attack and couldn’t disrupt the voting in most centers.

The rest of it is the history that everybody knows; the 90% yes vote for independence and the denial by Madrid that there was a referendum at all. And, of course, King Philip the sixth expressed his disappointment with the disloyalty of his subjects in Catalonia. He should really consider choosing another nation to rule over.

The vision

I ask my guest how the Catalans view their future independent state. He explains that it is not a return to old style nationalism. Actually, most Catalans feel very much part of Europe. They speak from the beginning on limited sovereignty within the European Union, with common market, free movement of people and no visible borders. But if they anyway belong to the European club, why do it through the mediation of Madrid and not directly through Barcelona?

Agricultural Anarchist Collective – Catalonia 1936

But not all Catalans are to this level mainstream Europeans. There is a strong anarchist tendency, which enjoys the support of more than 10% of the electorate. And there is the radical left that is critical of Europe’s conservative economic policies. My guest is concerned with the radicalism of these parties, but he can’t deny that they are integral part of Catalan political history and culture. In the framework of Free Catalonia Podemos might well be the next government party.

He stress that Catalan nationalism is not xenophobic. Because of Catalonia’s economic prosperity it drew economic migrants from all over Spain and from other countries. He says the independence movement take care to put in the front not only people from Catalan origins but also immigrants from different races and regions of the world.

Catalonia’s people have all different views about the future. Now they are (or most of them) united in a struggle for independence. When this struggle will be won they will have the chance to pursue their dreams, free of outside chains and interventions.

To some extent this vision may be viewed as converging toward a modern concept of trans-national unity, with no physical borders, combined with decentralized democracy and multiculturalism, which distribute as many powers as possible to all local levels, where the people are. The Kurdish left, confronted with the much more complicated quagmire of the Middle East, developed it into a comprehensive concept of Democratic Confederalism.

Reality check

I ask my Catalan guest about the danger of violent oppression. What will really come next after a declaration of independence?

The immediate expected response is more oppression from Madrid. But the worst he can think about is hundreds of political prisoners, mostly the imprisonment of the political leadership. He doesn’t think that in democratic Spain that wants to stay as part of democratic Europe there could be massacres or uncontrolled violence.

I hope he is right, but Madrid’s refusal to negotiate before the referendum will be “annulled” and threats to abolish Catalonia’s limited autonomy and force direct rule don’t bode well. As the people of Catalonia are mobilized in the struggle and the government only opts for more repression there are unlimited options for friction and confrontation to escalate and get out of control.

The Catalan leadership is striving for negotiations. Their main hope is that the European Union will intervene to find an agreed solution. But they are ready for any other kind of mediation, including Pope Francis who already intervened to solve sharp internal conflicts in other countries.

We like to think that the world is moving forward toward a more democratic order, where conflicts are solved by arguments and votes, not by guns and violence. The two referendums in Kurdistan and Catalonia pose an intriguing test to this assumption.

The Kurds know that they live and the most dangerous and politically oppressive region of the world, where hereditary kings and dictators rule by the power of the sword, and nationalism and sectarianism mix to create a combustive atmosphere. They don’t dare to declare independence as the armies of all neighboring states are ready to intervene to crush their dreams,

The Catalan referendum poses the question of how different Europe has become, has it really left behind its not so far violent past? It will test Europe’s pretension to represent a more democratic order that others may take inspiration from. If the holy unity of the state will prove stronger than the will of the people, than democracy is only a thin mask over the ugly face of dictatorship.

Why I support the NO vote in the Turkish referendum?

When I was touring Turkey with my family in 1996, I fell in love with the country. I had the feeling that it looks very much like Palestine would have been if it was not torn apart and stepped over by settlers.

Not that everything looked good. There was poverty almost everywhere, and the military presence was thick and frightening. The soldiers would look suspiciously at people in the streets and point their guns as if ready to shoot you. Going to the countryside we noticed that the government seemed absent while people were building mosques everywhere. The country was ripe for the rise of political Islam.

Turkey’s Contradictions

Following Turkish politics over the years was very instructive. Turkey is not just another big country in the Middle East. In the last decades the political developments in the region concentrated around the conflict between the powers of the old order, Imperialism, Zionism and entrenched local elites, and a mass movement mostly under Islamic orientation. In Iran there was a stormy revolution in 1979, followed by war, internal terror and upheavals. In Turkey the Islamists came to power by elections in 2002 as a reformist force. Also, Turkey’s Islam is mostly Sunni and the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the main Islamic party in Turkey, is regarded to be close to the Moslem Brotherhood – the biggest political party (even as it is persecuted in many places) in most Arab countries. So the Turkish experience was regarded as probing one alternative for developments in the wider region.

The AKP election victory in 2002 didn’t mean that the party could really lead the country, as Turkey’s democracy was a very limited and ultimate power laid with the army. Even after AKP was already long time in government there were attempts to “outlaw” it, as was done with a previous democratically elected Islamic government in 1997-98. The struggle about who really governs Turkey continued. By gradually neutralizing the grip of the army over the state, the AKP, led by Erdogan, made an essential service to democracy in Turkey. Only after the failed coup in July 2016 did the elected government achieve effective control over the army.

Many critics of Turkey in the Arab world like to speak about the danger of Erdogan’s attempts to revive the Ottoman Empire, much the same as others speak about the Iranian danger. I tend to be more conservative in my analysis and assume that the main hegemon (politically, militarily and economically) continues to be external imperialism. I look at the rise of local powers more as an opportunity. In its 15 years in government AKP changed the political and economic orientation of Turkey to be less dependent on Western powers and more oriented to its regional neighbours and other third world countries. It seemed to have a very positive effect for Turkey’s development.

The Kurdish Litmus

The most pressing internal contradiction in Turkey is its control over northern Kurdistan. The denial of the Kurdish nationality, language and culture kept alive the experiences of ethnic cleansing against minorities that accompanied the establishment of modern Turkey as a nation-state. The continued military effort to suppress the Kurdish aspirations for freedom and equality gave constant legitimacy to internal oppression and fascist nationalism. It is another example of Marx’s saying that people who oppress other people can’t be free. The position toward the Kurdish question is the most important litmus test for the democratic attitude of any party or government in Turkey.

In his first period in power it seemed that Erdogan is moving toward a more compromising position toward the Kurds. He relieved restrictions over the use of the Kurdish language and opened negotiations with the PKK and its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan. In 2013 they reached an agreement about ceasefire that was supposed to open the way for a peaceful solution.

But recent developments showed that Erdogan is turning Turkey away from the path toward democracy. Naturally it started with changing policy toward Kurdistan. You can set the turning point in the June 7, 2015, general elections. The partial democratization allowed the democratic forces in Turkey, led by Kurdish militants, to create The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and pass the restrictive 10% hurdle for representation in the parliament, gaining 13% of the popular vote. Erdogan’s party used to get much of the Kurdish vote before as the less-anti-Kurdish choice. It lost its majority in parliament and had to choose between forming a coalition government and new elections. It unleashed a wave of oppression in Kurdistan in order to beat its Kurdish opponents on one side and appease Turkish nationalist voters on the other. It won absolute majority in rerun of the elections in November 2015.

After the failed coup, in spite of the wise support of all political parties to the government against the coup plotters, Erdogan used his reasserted legitimacy not only to persecute supporters of the coup but also to raise the general level of political oppression. The main victims were, how not, the Kurds. Many HDP leaders were arrested and any pro-Kurdish political activity can (again) result with charges of terrorism.

On the most important “foreign affairs” front – the civil war in Syria – the choice for Turkey was most blunt. It could give a major boost to democracy in Syria by supporting and helping to unite all democratic forces. Instead the Turkish regimes indulgence with oppressing Kurds in Turkey dictated its enmity to the Kurdish forces and their Arab allies in Rojava, united under the umbrella of The Syrian Democratic Forces. This approach bears much of the responsibility for the resulting disaster in Aleppo and continued weakness of the Syrian opposition.

Western Hypocrisy

One reason why democracy in Turkey is so fragile is the hypocritical preaching by Western imperialists and their Turkish allies. You can start from the latest campaign for the referendum to change Turkey’s constitution, when European “democrats” were hunting Turkish ministers in aeroplanes and trains to prevent them from meeting Turkish voters in their “freedom-of–speech heavens”. I followed the news closely but till now I can’t even imagine on what legal grounds this was done. And you can go back to the root, where the Turkish-NATO army was regularly overthrowing democratically elected governments, razing to the ground hundreds of Kurdish villages and torturing thousands of political prisoners from all backgrounds – supposedly all in the name of freedom and Western values.

In between there is a whole encyclopaedia of double-talk and racist double-standards. Turkey should fight to defend the West against its Middle Eastern brothers but it and its citizens are refused access to the EU because they are too poor, too Islamic and not white enough. Every move by the Turkish regime is met with ridicule and patronizing disdain. Maybe the most hypocritical of all is the way that Humanistic Europe is paying the Turkish government (and Libya and others) to make the crossing of the Mediterranean so deadly for refugees, just because they can’t see the suffering on their own side.

Time to change course

All these contradictions return us to the methodology of political analysis. It is wrong to analyse a party or a regime according to its declared ideology. In every country there are concrete issues and everybody should be judged by their concrete answers and actions.

Some of my most secular friends tell me that they know what is the position of this or that Islamic movement, because they learned Islam and they know what is written in Islam’s holy books on that case. This will never explain why there are so many Islamic currents, with such different positions, some of them even fighting each other.

As much as I can see, the problem with Erdogan his not that Islam is contrary to democracy. The problem with him and his movement is that it started as a popular movement against oppressive regime, but now, after fifteen years in government, it entered a marriage of convenience with Turkish nationalism and the oppressive state apparatus. History can tell about many other movements, from all ideological hues, which went through similar transformations.

Even if Erdogan was a perfect leader, I wouldn’t recommend letting him concentrate more state powers or extend his spell at the head of government. Everybody can learn from this wise old Chinese, Deng Xiao Ping, who showed by personal example that the way to ensure your political agenda even after your death is to relay power in an orderly way to a new generation while you are still at your best.

It is now fully five years since the greatest upheavals in the modern history of the Arab World started in Tunis. Always impressed by the latest events, we tend to forget the deep roots of the current violent struggle. But unless we confront the causes, there is little chance that the symptoms will be healed.

The wave of refugees that has reached Europe and the terror attacks in Paris reminded many people in Europe and beyond of the crisis in our region – but at the same time led them to forget that the main victims of this crisis are the people of the region themselves.

Divide and Rule

For many centuries the people of the Middle East were not really free. They could not manage their own economies and politics as they would like.

After the Ottoman Empire was destroyed in the First World War, the European powers were quick to grab control of the region. Britain and France divided the region that expands from Turkey to the Indian Ocean between themselves in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916.

In order to ensure their control of the region, the imperialist powers used the well-tried policy of “divide and rule”. In many regions of the Middle East they supported minorities and gave them privileges over the majority, knowing that the minority would always be dependent on external powers to maintain its influence and control. In other areas they gave control to local families and made them kings or emirs, concentrating power in the hands of small elites.

They gave Palestine to the Zionist movement to build a state for Jewish immigrants at the expense of the local Arab population.

They built a sectarian state in Lebanon with the Christians at the top of the hierarchy.

They granted Sunni Islam a privileged position in Iraq.

They created the kingdom of Jordan and bestowed it on the Hashemite family from the Arab peninsula, which relies on and secures privileges for the Bedouin minority.

Syria comprised what was left over after the rest of the Arab East was divided between imperialist clients. It went through a period of instability, until it also came under the rule of a dictatorship based on the Alawite minority.

The Political Economy of Oil

The economy of the Middle East is mostly characterized by its dependence on oil as the main export product. Oil is a very political product, as it is easy to control and to monopolize. Even in many developed countries, oil taxation is an important source of government income. In our region, oil is the main export product and the main source of revenue for many governments.

An oil-based economy differs from one based on agriculture or industry. Primitive agriculture requires a large workforce. Developed industry requires educated workers. In normal economies the prosperity of the government or the elite is to a degree dependent on the well-being and cooperation of the masses and on some level of peace.

Oil requires a very small workforce to extract. The key to controlling its

Top spenders on Arms as proportion of local GDP – 2011 (below) – 2012

riches is sovereignty, or control of the state apparatus. The masses are not useful in this process. The rulers regard their people as unwanted extra mouths: you have to feed them and they may complain. In addition the price of oil tends to soar at times of war and insecurity and to slump at times of peace.

The interest of the imperialist powers is not only to secure the flow of oil to their economies. They also gain much of the proceedings through ownership of the fields themselves or of the shipping, processing and distribution facilities. It is also in the interest of the western economies that the oil wealth will not be invested in the development of the local economy or the wellbeing of the local population. Trillions of oil dollars, which were accumulated by the local rulers, are kept in western banks or investment funds and constitute a mainstay of the western economies.

Another way that the oil money is going back to the western powers is through selling weapons to the local regimes. In the arms industry profits are very high. A few western powers still maintain the technological superiority to control the markets. The security and political alliance with the top world powers is also a safety belt for the local rulers against any demand for reform from their wretched people.

The division of the Arab region between small artificial states helps to prevent the utilization of local resource to develop the local economy. Generally speaking – the oil belongs to some states while the hungry people live in other states. One special example for this policy was the creation of the state of Kuwait. It was an Iraqi oil field that was separated from Iraq by the British and given by them in 1961 to the Sabah family to rule.

The destructive role of Zionism

The Zionist colonization of Palestine was designed from its beginnings to serve the imperialist powers (initially Britain, later the US) as a bulwark against Arab independence. The Palestinians were the immediate victims

Ethnic Cleansing in the Galilee 1948

of Zionism, as 78% of Palestine was occupied by Israel in 1948 and most of the population was expelled in the ensuing Ethnic Cleansing.

The regional role of Zionism was first emphasized in the “Tripartite Aggression” of 1956, when Israel spread-headed a joint attack with Britain and France against Egypt over the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

In the 1967 war Israel succeeded not only to complete its occupation of Palestine but also to take Sinai from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. One dangerous consequence of that war was the decision of the Egyptian leadership, led by Anwar Sadat, to change course and “sell-out” Egypt economically and politically to the US, in return for regaining formal control of Sinai. In Syria the sense of vulnerability in face of the Zionist aggression was an important factor behind the right-wing coup that brought the Assad dynasty to power. This pattern was consolidated into a comprehensive US strategy for the Middle East: Let Israel beat the Arabs and later hold Israel back in return for Arab political concessions to US interests.

To enable this mechanism, it was set in official agreements that the US should guarantee Israeli military superiority over any coalition of regional countries. This was possible when the Arab armies were mostly composed of illiterate peasants led by corrupt officers. But to keep this promise of military superiority of a small settler state with a few million people (currently 6 million) over states representing hundreds of millions Arabs requires putting a brake over the development of the whole region.

After the 1979 Iranian revolution toppled the US-sponsored dictatorship

The Iraq-Iran war (1980-88) left colossal destruction on both sides

of the Shah, the US encouraged their then-client Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein to attack Iran. At the same time, Israel supplied weapons to the Iranians – at the highest days of the Islamic revolution – with the clear goal to prolong the conflict and increase the destruction on both sides. In the war that lasted from 1980 till 1988 hundreds of thousands were killed on each side and the suffering and destruction were colossal.

In the aftermath of this war, Iraq became a main target of the US-Israeli policy of containment, utilizing the excuse of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Iraq was a rare case among the Arab states where Oil and Population met in one state – so it could become a center of economic and military development. This led to 13 years of intense sanctions on Iraq, including systematic prevention of food and medicine, which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and many more adults. Not satisfied with this creeping genocide, the US, with active prodding from the Zionist lobby, occupied Iraq in 2003 and dismantled the foundations of the Iraqi state.

Even as Israel is not as useful tool for imperialism as it used to be, the commitment of the Western powers to preserve its racist system comes at a high price for the region as a whole. When, in 2006, there was a rare attempt to hold semi-democratic elections in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians gave clear majority to Islamic Hamas, rejecting the corrupt rule of Fatah that was oppressing Palestinians at the service of the occupation. The whole “international community” hurried to sanction the Palestinians for not showing more sympathy with their occupiers. The siege of Gaza, reinforced regularly by massacres, was designed to be a lesson in democracy and its outcomes for the whole region.

Israel very much wanted a repetition of the war on Iraq with another, bigger, imperialist war against Iran. This was too much for the US to swallow, as it already paid a very high toll for the Iraqi adventure, not least some 1 trillion dollar of expenses that could revive the crippled US economy. Now, as Syria is burning and bleeding, Israel doesn’t hide its satisfaction, as another “potential danger” is neutralized.

The rise of political Islam

In spite of all the above mentioned problems, many analysts still describe the current conflict as a result of the rise of “Islamic Extremism”. As if the people of the Middle East are not revolting against their oppression. As if all was well until unexplained crazy mood of extremism took hold.

This is the most superstitious and out-of-context explanation of political events.

Islam, as any other religion, and as many other ideologies like “liberalism” and “socialism”, all proposing a methodology for organizing society, can be used (or misused) to all sorts of political purposes: Justifying oppressive regimes, instigating war and genocide or struggles against oppression and discrimination.

In the 1980s the US used and paid for Islamic Jihadists to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Almost all Arab regimes use the Islamic religion, by one way or another, to legitimize the rule of elites of different types, most of them serving foreign imperialism more than anybody else. Not long ago it was official policy of Saudi Arabia and Mubarak’s Egypt, orchestrated by the US, to re-invent and inflame the Sunni-Shia conflict in order to distract Arab public opinion by describing Iran as “the real danger” – sparing Israel, the US and local “Sunni” Tyrants.

As all kinds of political expression are oppressed all over the region, it is just natural that the main form of mass organization that can’t be

Masses in Tahrir Square in Cairo

criminalized, practicing religion, becomes a central conveyer of the aspirations of the masses. But when Islam is used as an ideological or organizational framework for struggle against oppression it suddenly loses all legitimacy and described as a danger.

The dominance of Islamic movements in the Middle East is not only a result of political oppression. Nationalist and socialist movements were at the center of Arab politics for decades, but they lost credibility between the masses due to their own mistakes and shortcomings. At the same time Islamic movements, like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and the Sadrists in Iraq, kept the right balance between grassroots work to care for the daily needs of the masses and political struggle against occupation and tyranny. They implemented the methods taught by Lenin and Mao on how to build a movement effectively. Those Islamic movements that were connected to the masses and opposed local rulers (until Hezbollah took sides with Assad) were also more ready to support democracy and form coalitions with other parties and people from different religions.

What actually pushes masses of people to look for extreme solutions is not “ideology” but extremely harsh conditions. The Sunni communities in Iraq engaged in peaceful protest throughout 2013 against discrimination and oppression by the Shia-led Maliki government that was supported by both US and Iran. It was only after the government rejected any political solution, preferring to send the army to besiege their cities and bomb them, that the local militias organized with the so-called “Islamic State” to throw out the army. Only the shock caused by the victory of the Islamic State in Mosul forced the US and Iran to push aside Maliki and try to sponsor a less sectarian Iraqi government.

In similar conditions, years of bombing of their cities by the Assad regime pushed some Syrians into the arms of the Islamic State. The massacre of more than 200,000 Syrians was not regarded by “the international community” as an emergency until foreigners started to be in danger. It should also be said that the brave Kurdish and Arab opposition in Syria started to fight against the extremism of the so-called Islamic State long before it became an international affair.

Other regimes are likewise driving their people towards extremism. Egypt’s dictator Al-Sisi is doing it in Sinai. In Libya it is the policy of the army led by retired general and CIA agent Haftar, supported by the “internationally recognized” government in Tobruk. The method is well known: Bomb the people instead of listening to them. The reason is also familiar: When you’re the only “defender of the country” against “extremists” you will get plenty support and nobody will dare to question your crimes.

No mechanism for change

The Arab countries, with more than 300 million inhabitants, are now the most politically retarded and oppressive region in the world. There are several reasons for this.

First, it is the region where imperialism is making most money. When the US was forced to withdraw from Vietnam (in 1975) they declared the Middle East to be their next red line: Here they will fight rather than giving up control to nationalist or socialist movements.

The traditional support by western powers for Israel is another reason why they see any democratic reform in the region as a threat. Arab democracies which would need to take public opinion into consideration might well give more support to the Palestinians.

Since the beginning of the 70s and the dramatic rise in the price of oil, and until the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011, there was no political change in any country in the region. The ruling elites had enough resources to buy or crash any opposition.

While there were significant steps toward democratization in every other region in the world, in the Arab world the ruling elites have only became more oppressive.

A general rehearsal for things to come was played in Algeria in 1991. After

Leaders deposed by the Arab Spring

the Islamists won the first round of the elections, the army took control in a coup and outlawed the Islamists. In the civil war that emerged some 200,000 people died. The military government was fully supported by the western powers all along.

The accumulation of contradictions all over the region inevitably led to a much wider wave of protests and upheavals – the Arab spring.

You probably know this famous quote: “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future”. It is so famous, logical and elegant that it is attributed to many different oracles. It is almost as difficult to analyze political developments just as they happen in front of our eyes.

Still it is worth the effort to try, as better understanding of the situation can help us take a more constructive and effective role. And, as is inevitably the case, when we make mistakes in our analysis, and reality soon disproves us, those mistakes can also be used to critically examine our assumptions and analytic methods.

So, what can we already learn from the events of October 2015 in Palestine?

On the methodology

Most of the discussion that I’ve seen over the last month, and I mean those articles that tried to analyze the events, not just promote the cause of the Palestinian liberation struggle (or of the Israeli oppressors), concentrated around the question whether this is “a third Intifada” or just “a Heba”. Mainly they were attempting to assess the strength and durability of the current confrontation.

This one-dimensional thinking seems to me to miss much of what can and should be analyzed. The development of the confrontation between the occupying state and the Palestinian society are influenced by internal economic and social changes within each side as much as by the course of the confrontation itself.

Beyond this, events in Palestine are integrally connected to the system of control and social development in the Middle East and its place in the world. This system is now undergoing the most profound crisis in its modern history. And this crisis in the Middle East is happening against the background of major changes in the relationship of powers between the old imperialist powers and the emerging third world, while technological and cultural changes enable new ways of organization and resistance as well as new methods of oppression.

Who Started?

It is not (or not only) about the blame game… Understanding the dynamics that led to the current climax is an important part in its analysis.

It is my view that it started with systematic Israeli provocations.

One small detail that testifies to this is that “events” in Al-Aqsa started around the 14th of September, the Jewish New Year holiday, which have no meaning for the Palestinians. Actually it became a tradition for the Israeli extremists to use Jewish holidays to initiate provocations in the holy places, hoping that the Army will be provoked by the Palestinian angry response and will retaliate with more oppression and massacres. In the last “cycle” it was only after more than two weeks of systematic provocations that there was wide Palestinian response, by the beginning of October.

To understand the logic of the Israeli provocations, we can also go back to the previous round, in the summer of 2014. The Israeli army exploited the kidnapping of 3 Israeli youth on June 12, 2014, to initiate a wide campaign of terror against the West Bank population. In order to do it they hid the fact that the three were killed on the same night that they were kidnapped, and claimed to be searching for them to save their lives. In the following campaign they killed scores of Palestinians in the West Bank, arrested many hundreds, including many of those that were released in the Shalit prisoners’ exchange. Finally Israel launched full scale massacres’ campaign against Gaza, killing thousands.

Building on Insanity

One difference between summer 2014 and autumn 2015 is that the current Zionist campaign was mostly led by “private initiatives”. There is a lot that should be investigated about the internal dynamics of the Zionist state and society:

The settlers and religious extremists strengthen their hold over all the institutions of the Israeli society: political parties, the army, the police, the courts, the media and much more.

Israeli politics is mostly about an unrestrained “populist” competition who is more openly and blatantly racist and oppressive.

One of the most significant phenomenons of this cultivated insanity is the systematic growth of the “Temple Mount Lobby” and the extent to which it is taking hold within the heart of the establishment.

We should not really have to dive into the depth of the Zionist spirit in order to analyze and understand the functionality of these “messianic” trends. The Zionists rely on their total military superiority against the mostly unarmed Palestinians and calculate that in any confrontation the Palestinians pay a much higher price in martyrs, physical injuries, thousands of prisoners and destruction of the infrastructure of civilian lives.

In their quest to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, what the Zionists are looking for is any opportunity to use their military power against the local population without paying too high price in the region or internationally. Now they calculate that the people of the region are too busy with internal struggles, and the regimes of the region are all mobilized to oppress the masses in their own countries in the most criminal ways. In this atmosphere almost any crime against the Palestinians can pass without severe repercussions.

Mass protests face intense oppression

The first Palestinians response, at the beginning of October, was mass demonstrations that started in Al-Quds and spread across the West Bank, Gaza and the 1948 occupied territories. In Al-Quds there was mass participation in the demonstrations day after day, like in the first intifada. In Gaza the first mass demonstrations near the Israeli border fence were met with deadly fire against unarmed civilians. I will relate later with more detail to the struggle within the ’48 areas, but it is important to note here that it combined a general strike and mass demonstrations as well as many initiatives by young activists all over the country.

With the resurgence of mass demonstrations, all the institutions of the occupation acted simultaneously to suppress the mass struggle by “changing the rules” to be ever more oppressive:

The Knesset passed extraordinarily fast the new law that sets long minimum prison sentences for the offence of throwing stones, even if there was no damage caused. In case somebody might get confused, the severe sentencing is only for “nationalistic” or “terrorist” stone-throwers, so Jews can go on throwing stones at will.

The police give priority to oppressing Palestinian protest over any other issue. Mass arrests are used for any offence from Facebook status through peaceful demonstration to confrontations.

The police and prosecution make mass trial against the youth that took part in the protests and do whatever they can to keep the accused in custody for the time of the trial.

The courts regard Palestinian protest as a kind of “terrorist activity” that deserves detention until trial, unlike any other offence.

Collective punishment was applied against all Arab residents of Al-Quds with roadblocks, closures and police harassment.

Administrative detention is now used not only against the political leadership but also against activists, even some teenagers.

The most severe measure is the usage of live ammunition by the police and the army against demonstrators. It is now systematically used in the Arab neighborhoods of Al-Quds.

Those draconian measures reduced very much the mass protests but increased the pressure and the anger within the Palestinian population.

Individual acts of violent resistance

As the price of political protest became higher, so there is stronger motivation for revenge and for physically attacking the occupation forces or the Jewish population, which is conceived as responsible for the occupation. This led to the wave of knife attacks and some armed or vehicle attacks, mostly by desperate youth that acted on their own.

It should be remembered that the “pacification” to which the occupation aspires doesn’t mean peace and security “for everybody” but the continuation of the expropriation and humiliation of the Palestinians without any response on their side. While mass protests are brutally oppressed and any kind of organized resistance is relatively an easy target to the security services – the individual acts of violent resistance are harder to prevent. They are conceived as success as they cause some harm to the occupiers – also the highest price is usually paid by the initiators.

I already wrote in more detail about the Lynch as an official Israeli policy. One clear example is an interview with “mainstream politician” Yair Lapid (in Hebrew) in Walla, on October 11, where he said that “The instructions should be clear: Everybody that takes out a knife or a screwdriver should be shot to kill”. In the racist Israeli-talk it was clear that, in this case, when he speaks of “everybody” he means Arabs.

More than 75 Palestinians were already killed in this last wave, the vast majority in incidents where no Jews (soldiers or civilians) were attacked or injured. In all the cases the official report is about “Mehabel” – a special Hebrew term, supposedly worse that regular “terrorist”, which is used for Palestinian resistance fighters.

The only cases that were recognized by the Israelis as “mistakes” were the Eritrean guy that was mob-lynched in Bir As-Sabe’e (Beersheba) and a religious Jewish guard that was killed by soldiers in Jerusalem. The mistake, as was clearly stated all over the Israeli press, was that they were mistakenly identified as Arab.

Comparing to the two Intifadas

Comparing the recent events with the latest two Palestinian Intifadas is very useful. One apparent difference is that in both of the Intifadas the whole Palestinian society was mobilized for the confrontation. Another, related, difference is that Intifadas were basically political struggle waged under the assumption (which later proved to be an illusion) that a political settlement is imminent.

Here I would like to express the view that the readiness of people to make the effort and bear the suffering that insurrection against an oppressive regime requires is basically motivated by hope. In the first intifada it was the belief that “the Palestinian state is at a stone’s throw”. It brought the Oslo agreement but no real freedom and no relax in oppression, ethnic cleansing and settlement building. The second Intifada was fueled by the belief that if the stones didn’t drive the occupiers out then rifles might do it. It worked for some degree in Gaza, but Gaza was put under siege and is regularly bombed. The occupation’s hold over the West Bank is now deeper than ever.

The current wave of struggle is different as it is not motivate by the hope of political solution but by disillusion with “the political process”. Still, trying to read the mood in the Palestinian street, I don’t think it is only “despair”. I think the Israeli hysteric response to the latest struggle is conceived as a sign of weakness. The major changes that take place in the region also inspire the belief that powers can fall and the people can change the course of history.

This renewed intense struggle against the occupation, not centered on any political program or the hope for political settlement, is thus not seen as an intense “round” in the historic conflict but more like a “new normal” where both the occupation and the resistance are taking a more violent form.

The internal dynamics of the Palestinian society

Concerning the internal development of the Palestinian society, the first Intifada can be seen as a revolutionary movement. The youth that mobilized in the liberation movement for armed struggle just after the occupation, and later begun to build new civil society in the seventies and eighties, toppled the dominance of the local conservative leadership and led to reorganization of society under the united leadership of the Intifada.

The second Intifada was more like regular war. The Palestinian movements and organizations already established themselves as at the commanding posts of society under the occupation. The newly founded Palestine Authority (PA) was torn between its obligation under the Oslo agreement to defend the occupation and the disappointment as it realized that Israel has no intention to let it develop into a fully independent state. The forces of the Palestinian society, including much of the established leadership, were mobilized to try to push the occupiers out.

In the current wave of struggle the internal dynamics of the Palestinian society are very different. The establishment of the PA resettled after the second intifada back to its function as supplier of local services and a security buffer under the occupation. The youth that are leading the struggle are doing it at their independent initiative, sidelining the PA establishment but not yet challenging it.

Learning from history, we may expect that the next waves of struggle will require and bring more dramatic internal changes within the Palestinian society itself.

The struggle in ‘48

Demonstration started on Monday, October 5, in several locations. One of them was a protest vigil in the German Colony in Haifa, which was initiated by Herak Haifa but organized under the united banner of “The Patriotic and Democratic Forces in Haifa”. It developed into a small spontaneous marching demonstration.

Al-Herak Shababi called for a country-wide mobilization to a demonstration in Nazareth, on Thursday, October 8. This call was met with new level of oppression: Some of the organizers were arrested on the day before in preventive detention (3 women activists were arrested with their fathers!). They were held in prison for 4 days. Buses carrying demonstrators were prevented from reaching Nazareth. The demonstration itself was attacked by the police and more than 20 of the participants were arrested. Some of the demonstrators that were prevented from reaching Nazareth went on to demonstrate in Um Al-Fahm and Tamra. In Tamra the police arrested 3 of the bus drivers, kept them in custody for the night and took hold of the buses for several days.

On the next Tuesday, October 13, there was a general strike of the Palestinian population and a mass demonstration in Sakhnin. The feeling was that, after long time, the people are really united in struggle.

But what seems most significant for me was that this time it was not only the political parties or even the new and more dynamic structures of the Herakat that organized and led the struggle. Many demonstrations were organized, between October 5 and 14, by local groups of activists. Many of them developed into clashes with the police. Hundreds of activists were detained and many are now still in prison and facing trial.

This level of mobilization is not totally new. It happened in the day of the land in 1976 and after the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982. It was seen on a much higher level in the beginning of the second intifada, in October 2000, when a general strike and mass demonstrations brought all areas with Arab population to a standstill for 10 days. It was seen again during the latest onslaught on Gaza in summer 2014. But, relatively to most of the above mentioned events, this time there was no mass massacre to respond to, so it can be interpreted as a step forward in the organization of the activists and their ability to initiate protest.

The question I want to pose here is whether (or how) the new layer of activists that lead the struggle in the streets can become a more effective social and political force. The way to make this transformation may include:

Form a better connected network.

Be involved on a daily basis in the struggle against discrimination and Apartheid in a way that will be felt by and gain the trust of the general masses.

On the organizational level, a new type of mass organization, based on modern communication, can unite Palestinian activists and struggles beyond fences and borders.

On the political level, the struggle requires a political agenda that will expose and replace the current bankrupt one.

Opposition in the Israeli society

I must admit that I didn’t spend a lot of time following events in the Israeli society during this October. Still I have the feeling that in the face of the new challenges and the intensified crisis the level of political opposition was disappointing.

Faced with the challenge of the second intifada and the failure of the Oslo agreement, organizations like “Ta’ayush” and “Anarchists against the wall” changed the paradigm of the left in the Israeli society form a “pro-peace” lobby within the Israeli side of the conflict to “joining the Palestinian struggle against the occupation”.

In the latest events, those demonstrations that took place were mostly back at the old paradigm of equating the “two sides”. But, unlike the old days when the Israeli “peace camp” was strongly devoted to the illusion of the “two state solution”, now we hear them calling for peace without any concept or concrete program what this peace may be and where it will come from.

The most encouraging things that I read in the Israeli papers were the growing disillusion with Zionism as a whole, as a result of the deepening crisis. The talk about the paradigm of the “One State” is more ubiquitous than ever, even as the clear voice that calls for One Democratic State with full rights to all as a just and positive solution is hardly heard.

Some Israeli retreats

It is worth mentioning that the current wave of struggle forced Israel to some tactical retreats about provocative steps other than the extreme measures that were directly intended to suppress the protest.

The most obvious example is Israel’s proclamations of its obligation “to keep the status quo” in Al-Aqsa. Another example was the temporary suspension of the work on the anti-Arab “nationality law” in the Knesset.

Another issue that exemplifies both Israel’s hysteric and shameless response as well as its retreat before mass pressure was the much trumpeted decision to hold the bodies of Palestinian martyrs. It caused a wave of mass protest in Al-Khalil that led to the returning of some bodies and much wider public funerals.

The regional and international context

Netanyahu has just lost his most important political struggle on the world stage, to drag his imperialist sponsors into war against Iran. Israel used to be an important advanced position for imperialism to guard its interests in the Middle East. But Israel, as it is hated by the Arab masses because of its racist policies, is not an acceptable partner in any of the local and global coalitions that are now fighting for control of the boiling Arab East.

As Israel is losing its “strategic value”, the tension in Palestine is a constant drag not only on Israel’s image but also on the reputation of the Western powers that back it. The “Temple Mount Lobby” that is nourished by the current government is threatening to become a regional time bomb which nobody could ignore.

Like all reactionary forces in the region, Netanyahu tries to ride the so-called “Islamic State” horse in order to resist any change and paint any movement that struggles against the current oppressive order as “terrorists” and a danger to the world’s peace.

Freedom and democratization in the Middle East, the establishment of pluralistic society and new social and economic development plans that will care for the people are still the best foundation to expose and eventually uproot Israeli Apartheid.